Lisa Hendrix

You know those annoying  commercials where Person A offers Person B a piece of overly sweet junk food, and is refused with the comment “That contains high-fructose corn syrup. You know what they say about high-fructose corn syrup.” And then Person A says,  all cocky, “What do they say?” and Person B stumbles to silence while Person A lays out the party line that it’s really just sugar and it’s all okay?

Well, it turns out that the correct answer to “What do they say?” is “It’s full of mercury, bozo.”

Actually, it had its high point, that being the inauguration of President Obama and the sight of that big Marine helicopter soaring off with his predecessor. (Oorah!)

Even as we celebrated, though, I spent Inauguration Day watching our gray kitty, Zelda, who suddenly wasn’t doing too well. Polycystic kidneys, the vet told us nearly a year ago. Genetic. Nothing to be done, short of a kidney transplant. But she puttered along just fine until Tuesday.

Then there were copy edits on Immortal Outlaw (copy edits are the ones where you catch typos, punctuation, and grammar errors, along with stupid repeating words). Copy edits aren’t bad. In fact, they’re quite wonderful, especially when you’re lucky enough to get a really good copy editor like I have for the last two books. But they are time consuming. And I had a sick cat, who had to be helped to the litter box and looked worse as the week went on.

But we puttered along.

Then last night, at about 11pm Read the rest of this entry »

I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. 

My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

I thank President Bush for his service to our nation as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.  

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.

The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because Read the rest of this entry »

IMMORTAL WARRIOR is up for a Preditors and Editors award this year in the Romance category. If you enjoyed Ivo and Alaida’s tale, please consider voting BEFORE JANUARY 14:

http://www.critters.org/predpoll/novelr.shtml

PLEASE NOTE: Your vote doesn’t count until you confirm it by following the link in the email Preditors and Editors will send you. Again, you MUST click on the link in the confirmation email you will receive from Preditors and Editors (i.e., from the address predpoll_noreply @ critique.org  — without the spaces, of course) after you vote in order to have your vote counted. Set your spam filter so the message passes through.

Thanks for your support.

…at Something Wicked. Come hang out with the Wicked Authors and me and see if we can stir up some mischief.

A standing stone with runes plays a key role in IMMORTAL WARRIOR, but if I’d seen this wonderful augmented exhibit from the Cultural History Museum in Randers, Denmark, it might have had even a bigger part.  The museum uses digital technology to project a story on the stone itself, then carry the runes off the stone and into the visitor’s space where the viewer interacts with them.  Amazing, dramatic, beautiful. (Wait ’til you see the stone crack open…)

I want to go to Denmark.

Thanks to Gizmodo for bringing this to my attention.

I was going to blog about that here, but I had a commitment over at Shapeshifter Romance, so I blessed them with my wit and perspicacity instead (though I’ll undoubtedly steal my own words back, sometime further along the timeline, and post them here for future reference).  Wander on over. Read. Comment. Show those other shifter gals that I can draw a crowd…

Pop over to my official CONTEST PAGE at Writerspace to check out the prize package and enter.

How books get written and bodies get changed.

I started the separate blog for my weight loss/fitness effort, New Year, New Ass. There you will find secrets revealed, ideas floated, and the beginnings of a process I hope will carry me into a more healthy future.  If you’re interested in cheering me on or joining the effort (come on admit it—you can stand to drop a pound or two, and that way we can cheer for each other), click on over. You can participate by commenting or by becoming a Follower.

The next post here will be about the first steps of writing a book, à la Lisa.

First the obligatory Happy New Year wishes. May the coming year bring you…yada-yada. You’ve seen it everywhere. I have nothing new to add. (That’s meant to be a New Year’s Bonfire in the pic, btw.)

I’ve been doing a lot of ruminating about this blog over the last few weeks. The past year has been a learning experience; I’ve had to figure out the mechanics of WordPress plus suss out how to approach the world via this blogging thing. I mean really, my first reaction to the idea of personal blogging when I heard about it was, “Why would anyone be interested in what Joe Schmo has to say?” ( I had the same reaction to Twitter, btw. Never buy stock based on what I think of a social media trend.)

So, probably as a legacy of that thinking (why would anyone be interested in what I have to say?) and my inherent nature (shy person forced to be out-going by circumstance), my blog has been relatively, dare I say, dull. Directionless. And above all, harder than hell to write, because I have no idea what’s next.

So, on the assumption that any direction is better than no direction, I’ve chosen a couple, one professional and one personal. Both relate to things I want to accomplish in the next 6 months or so: Complete my next paranormal historical romance (my WIP*, Immortal Champion) in record time and drop 40 pounds. I intend to blog about the writing process, trying to do so in a way that will be interesting to both writers and readers (some technical posts and some that are emotional/inspirational/revelatory). And with luck, I can make the weight loss thing interesting and useful, too, with the daily grind aspects on a secondary blog and posts here for entertainment and accountability purposes.

Accountability. Franky, that’s why I’m doing this. I want your help to keep me on the straight and narrow (as in, how I want my rear profile to be). There’s nothing quite as motivating as the prospect of public humiliation to keep me focused. 

So, that’s the rough plan. Those aren’t the only things I’m going to write about, of course, because I’m kind of an intellectual magpie and pick up all sorts of shiny things that I’ll undoubtedly want to write around. But the processes of creating a book and decreasing my pant size will form the framework for a while.

I’ll check back in tomorrow with a bit more detail, like just what that pant size is (egad), where you can find that secondary blog, where I’m at in my WIP, and how I’m going to approach both projects.

Feel free to question or comment below. I’m especially curious whether any of you want to join me in dropping a few pounds…or in writing a book.

* WIP = Work In Progress